South Seas Lore: Possible Raid Bosses

The South Seas expansion is not merely about raiding a particular(s) corrupted Goblin Trade Prince. The lore importance of it is cataclysmic by default. There are many bosses already established either in previous games, or printed books.

The main boss of World of Warcraft was no doubt Onyxia and Nefarian. All quests for Horde and Alliance led there. The Alliance had been in chaos due to lack of military support from Stormwind. Each town fending by themselves alone. Onyxia turned out to be behind the disappearance of King Varian Wrynn (as seen in the World of Warcraft comic book ongoing series) and behind the turmoil in Stormwind, as she was revealed to be Lady Katrana Prestor in human disguise.

The Burning Crusade expansion was focused on the final boss: Illidan, in the Black Temple. As well as his servants: Lady Vashj and Kael’thas Sunstrider. However, at the closure of this expansion we had the Sunwell Plateau dungeon which featured the summoning of Kil’jaeden and the sacrifice of Anveena (the avatar of the Sunwell).

Finally, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is centered around two figures: Yogg-Saron in Ulduar, and the final boss Arthas the Lich King in the Icecrown Citadel.

However, who would be the main bosses in the South Seas if this was the next expansion? Below you can read some of the main possible candidates.

QUEEN AZSHARAOnce upon a time, there was a single massive continent known as Kalimdor. The Queen of the Night Elves was loved and venerated. Her arrogance, vanity, and thirst for power over other lesser civilizations turned out to be her own downfall. She and a select few of Night Elves known as the Highborne considered themselves above all other civilizations, and even above other Night Elves. They wanted to purify the world. Their magical experiments upon the Well of Eternity was sensed by the renegade Titan Sargeras, lord of the Burning Legion. Sargeras communicated through the Well with the Highborne, and Queen Azshara agreed to serve Sargeras with his promise for purification of their world and a golden age. The Highborne doubled their spellwork efforts to open a portal fueled by the Well of Eternity to allow Sargeras entry into Azeroth.

With the help of the Ancients and the Dragonflights, the Night Elves—led by Malfurion Stormrage, Tyrande and Jarod Shadowsong—halted the summoning of Sargeras. This destabilized the highborne’s spellwork and the raw magical forces upon the collapsing portal caused the Well of Eternity to implode. A cataclysm ensued, sundering the land. The massive land of Kalimdor broke. The sea flooded in to fill in the gaps, and great masses of land were now underwater—forming the Great Sea. A permanent scar of this cataclysm remains even now after ten thousand years: the Maelstrom. It is the former Well of Eternity, which still exists beneath the ocean floor—according to Prospector Brann Bronzebeard.

Queen Azshara and the Highborne were trapped in their palace underwater. The Queen casted a forcefield to protect herself and her followers from drowning. The effort was overwhelming, and for the first time, a drop of sweat crossed along her forehead. In that desperate moment, the whispers of the Old gods reached Queen Azshara. Should she obeyed and served the Old gods, she and her highborne would be spared from death. She accepted. Suddenly their spines were flooded by a searing hotness, and their features began to change. The once loved Queen Azshara and her highborne were transformed, blessed by the might of the Old gods. Enter the Naga.

Many fans wrongly think that Illidan awoke the naga—during the Warcraft III: Frozen Throne (RTS) cinematic. They weren’t sitting there slumbering for ten thousand years. Proof of that comes during a quest in Borean Tundra. A naga siren by the Riplash Strand is held captive by the Kvaldir. She offers a quest to help her stop the Kvaldir’s efforts who plan to free a Kraken beneath the waters near the Riplash Ruins. The naga siren confirms that Queen Azshara imprisoned this Kraken 500 years ago. Which means she has been ruling Nazjatar beneath the Maelstrom all this time, probably shaping the history of Azeroth one way or another under the instructions of her masters: the Old gods.

In World of WarCraft RPG: Shadow and Light, Queen Azshara is represented slightly different to her Naga (former Highborne) subordinates. She looks like Medusa (snakes instead of hair). From her waist down, her body resembles that of an octopus. She is a living arcane battery absorbing the raw power of the broken Well of Eternity. The naga and probably other obedient races channel her excess power through faith and prayers which she bestows and grants to her followers. Otherwise, she would be overwhelmed by so much power.—read more in Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive

DEATHWING Neltharion the Earth-Warder had fallen to the whispers of the Old gods, and betrayed the Dragon Aspects. He deviced a golden disc shaped off his own blood by goblin blacksmiths, and offered it to the dragonflights to imbue in it part of their own powers to be used as a weapon against the Burning Legion. However, Neltharion used the Demon Soul for his own benefit and decimated the Blue dragonflight, many Night Elves and demons in a display of power. Gone was Neltharion. Now he would be known as Deathwing—read more in Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive (Pocket Books). You heard of him in Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal (RTS), WarCraft: Day of the Dragon and in World of Warcraft: Beyond the Dark Portal (Pocket Books).

The last time we heard of Deathwing was in November 2008 in the pages of World of WarCraft: Night of the Dragon. He has been hiding and scheming these past 20 years after the Second War. His hideout is right under the nose of the dragonflights, where no one would thought possible he would be hiding. Deep beneath the volcanic magma under Grim Batol. With the failed experiments of Nefarian and Lady Sinestra, he finally created a powerful breed of dragons … the Twilight Dragonflight. This is why we fought Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctuary beneath the Wyrmrest Temple.

On February 2009, during the New York Comic Con, I interviewed Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson. (watch the video). They confirmed there are plans for Deathwing to be a raid boss in World of Warcraft (MMO). Could he be one of the bosses in the South Seas expansion? Mount Kajaro in Isle of Kezan looks like the perfect Deathwing Lair. Or is he part of the source of the Nightmare in the Emerald Dream? That’s yet to be seen. We got the hint in the War of the Ancients novel that Deathwing is able to enter the Emerald Dream at will, undetected by Ysera.

The truth of who is behind the Nightmare will be revealed in the upcoming novel titled World of Warcraft: Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak—according to Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson.

NEPTULONThe Twilight Hammer has been constant throughout all the World of Warcraft expansions one way or another. They were at the Master’s Glaive—the remains of a dead Old god. They were in Blackfathom Deeps to bring back Aku’mai—the favored pet of the Old gods. They were at Blackrock Depths preparing the way for Ragnaros. They were in Silithus attempting to summon Al’akir? These are the Elemental Lieutenants of the Old gods: Ragnaros the Firelord, Therazane the Stonemother, Al’akir the Windlord and Neptulon the Tidehunter. These were exiled and imprisoned by the Titans outside Azeroth in the Elemental Plane.

However, mages have been able to summon elementals. Emperor Thaurissan summoned Ragnaros accidentally three hundred years ago in Blackrock Mountains. And the Twilight Hammer are attempting to bring doom to the world by summoning the Lieutenants of the Old gods, to help in the process of releasing the Old gods from the places the Titans chained them.

Neptulon sounds like a good potential boss to be fought in the South Seas expansion, unless he is reserved for a future Elemental Plane expansion.

CHO’GALLThis one will thrill many lore fans. He was thought dead in WarCraft II (RTS) and even in the recent World of WarCraft: Beyond the Dark Portal (Pocket Books) where he got two axe strikes on the chest.

The first sign that he was not dead came through our interview with Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson back on February 2009. Neilson said Cho’gall was not dead.

Cho’gall appeared barely a few weeks later on the World of Warcraft comics book (Wildstorm Comics) in issue # 15-20. He is the leader of the Twilight’s Hammer Cult. In the comic, he is behind a plot to resurrect C’Thun in Ahn’Qiraj after we raided it and killed him.

Cho’gall is following a prophecy found in Outland about the son of Medivh and Garona—Me’dan. This child has great power, and is prophesized to either be the savior of Azeroth or its doom. Cho’gall used a captured Med’an to become host of C’thun. The attempt failed as Meryl and Valeera Sanguinar came to the rescue.

Will we find Cho’gall in the South Seas attempting to summon Neptulon, freeing the remaining Old god, or worse yet … bringing back Sargeras?

SARGERASIs he dead? The answer is no. Chris Metzen said in our interview there were big plans for Sargeras in World of Warcraft. When? It’s a matter of time. Is his avatar in the Tomb of Sargeras? Or was his body retrieved by the Twilight Hammer during the Second War? After all, Cho’gall has been alive all this time. Or was Sargeras’ avatar retrieved by Queen Azshara and the naga for some nefarious plan? If so, are the Old gods behind the resurrection of Sargeras? Hmm …

ANOTHER OLD GOD Finally, another event that could be a cataclysm to the world of Azeroth is the release of one of the Old god from his prison. We have seen that Ulduar was the prison of Yogg-Saron. Could Uldum and Uldaman be Old gods prisons too? Did anyone even thought about that? Has anyone thought why the Well of Eternity was created? Was it only and exclusively to create lifeforms in Azeroth as one of the Titans experiments? Or was there some other reason why they built the Well of Eternity? Why doesn’t other seeded worlds reshaped by the Titans have their own Well of Eternity? Why Azeroth? Could the Well of Eternity be rather a prison for the most powerful of the Old gods, and used as a device to channel arcane magic into Azeroth in a good and controlled way to nurture the environment created by the Titans?

Remember in Warcraft: War of the Ancients (Pocket Books) when that long tendril grabbed Krasus? It seemed as if the tentacle came straight from within the imploding Well of Eternity, as the cataclysm of the Great Sundering was happening. Could it be that the Well of Eternity was all along a prison for the most powerful of the Old gods? Hmm …

That would fit with the new introduced lore that the Old gods are necrophotic symbiotes, and that the Titans preferred to imprison the Old gods instead of killing them because it would kill the hosts: the Vrykul, Earthen, and other species that were affected by the Curse of Flesh. What if the Well of Eternity was used as a catalyst to siphon the Old gods’ arcane power in a way that would benefit the Titans to nurture life in Azeroth?

With the World of Warcraft comic book showing us that Cho’gall attempted to resurrect the Old god C’thun, we have been hinted that you can’t really kill an Old god. His spirit is still there in Ahn’Qiraj. We saw Cho’gall placing Med’an (son of Garona and Medivh) over C’Thun’s dead body to use him as new host. What if killing an Old god is instead freeing them from their prison? Gasp, so now we have C’Thun and Yogg-Saron killed by us. Or are they truly dead? Did we free them accidentally from their prison by slaying their physical form?

Regardless of which answers are true or incorrect, an Old god might be one of the final bosses to tackle in a South Seas expansion.

Hope this was an informative and entertaining conspiracy theory for the lore fans and non-lore fans visiting us on a daily basis. Check us back tomorrow for the continuation of our South Seas Lore series.